CA: Coalinga State Hospital said to be on lockdown, but no official confirmation given

I received the following back from Robert Turner:

Coalinga State Hospital officials cloud issues over why patient protests erupted
By Robert Turner, Community Liaison for Detainee-Americans for Civic Equality
Within the confines of Coalinga State Hospital, a patient-organized group that distributes election material to patients and helps their peers there in registering to vote, wants to set the record straight about ongoing protests that have brought the hospital to a lockdown. Detainee-Americans for Civic Equality (DACE), comprised of patients inside the state facility, say someone needs to clarify erroneous information coming from hospital officials. These hospital residents are disturbed that misinformation is being given to their families and attorneys over the recent turmoil in the treatment facility, painting an incorrect picture about the protests which started last Friday, January 12.
Coalinga State Hospital (CSH) is the largest facility in the nation devoted to concentrating and re-educating sex offenders. The nearly thousand civil detainees currently locked away in the state hospital are not there for punishment, since every one of them have completed their prison sentences, but because state-sanctioned expert psychologist evaluators have determined that they are likely sometime in the future to commit a sex crime again. Hence, the civil rather than criminal designation to their confinement, which constitutionally requires they be treated better than prisoners are, and housed in a “least-restrictive environment.”
DACE, to be clear, wasn’t organized to represent patients publicly, but the hospital-wide patient government cannot speak publicly because its bylaws don’t allow it to become involved in patient protests. Members of DACE find this void in balancing public information unacceptable. Since the hospital opened in 2005, patients there have increasingly viewed the hospital more as adversary than healer. In the past half month tensions have reached a breaking point.
The causes for the turmoil in the state facility are almost too numerous to mention, but one issue that seriously disturbs patients inside CSH is the conflating of the entire general population with a few patients who have been caught with child pornography. Because of this, patients have never been allowed access to the Internet, and now the administration is set to confiscate all remaining patient-owned computers. DACE asserts that less than one percent have been arrested on such charges, and far less than that have been convicted since the hospital opened. Staff members who have been caught smuggling in illegal pornography have yet to be either charged or convicted. The complicity of hospital workers in giving access to child porn, the small numbers of patients actually involved, and the fact that the hospital doesn’t have the funds to investigate active cases are issues the administration would like to keep camouflaged, according to DACE.
The Department of State Hospitals (DSH) recently and underhandedly pushed through a major restriction to the type of electronic property it will allow patients to own. Rushed through as “emergency rulemaking” during Christmas week, DSH caught patients unawares and successfully thwarted patient residents, their families, and attorneys from mounting timely challenges. DACE claims that DSH failed in its duty to post these rule changes in advance, as procedures require, and that the department additionally failed to file the changes in a timely manner with the statutorily mandated vetting agency, the Office of Administrative Law.
According to one active DACE member who prefers to remain anonymous, it was this “Christmas surprise” that sparked the patients’ ire. The fact that the OAL not only seemed to abet the shady process but itself rushed the approval through to the Secretary of State by January 12th all combined to stir up the stressed-out population. The combative mood was set when new rules were announced at a town hall meeting of patient organizers in the auditorium that night, drawing a crowd of nearly 500. Realizing that once again the administration had succeeded in demonizing the entire population for the actions of a few left many seething. Pockets of disgruntled patients took to the halls and some, advocating civil disobedience, smashed several clocks, jammed door locks, overturned trash cans, and splattered food. Over the following nights, with shouts of “No justice, no peace!” as the clarion call, the level of destruction ramped up from unit to unit, though no workers or hospital officers were hurt during the protests. With the onset of the hospital lockdown on January 14, the administration quickly acted to remove all patient access to incoming and outgoing telephone calls.
The patient population, says DACE in a January 18 press release, feel completely dehumanized, especially upon learning the hospital will backtrack on granting Internet access. CSH’s civilly committed sex offenders, most of whom have completed their parole and so are allowed to vote in elections, are supposed to have all of the rights afforded free citizens, short of being able to leave the grounds of the facility. The Supreme Court’s recent ruling ensuring sex offenders access to social media is being totally ignored by DSH officials.
Patients, who refer to themselves as “hosprisoners” are already despondent over a decades-long unresolved federal suit against DSH and hospital administrators for what they feel are flagrant and ongoing violations of their civil rights. Over the past year hospital staff have repeatedly taken away previously allowed property, upped already harsh restrictions on monthly packages, cut down on food quality and medical care, and refused to investigate the death of a patient at the hands of an officer. The newly unveiled limits on electronics, reducing patients to just one TV, a radio, and a CD player seemed to ratchet things to an unacceptably oppressive limit. Patients at Coalinga State Hospital just want to be treated as they are now classified by law—detained civilians—who ought not to suffer conditions of confinement worse than they suffered while serving their prison terms.

Robert Turner is the Community Liaison for Detainee-Americans for Civic Equality (DACE). He spent twelve years after the end of his prison term confined in Atascadero and Coalinga State Hospitals before finally being released in 2012.

Additionally, a complaint was filed online with the Office of the California Attorney General’s Bureau of MediCal Fraud and Elder Abuse.

Many of these civil residents are elderly and infirm and since the lockdown few are being given opportunities for fresh air, sunshine and exercise, but are confined to their quarters and denied (for a week now) any means to contact their families. Since the Coalinga local sales tax measure went down to defeat the city has blamed CSH resident for having to lay off many officers, firemen, and city hall workers because the hospital residents’ votes tipped the balance. Many staff at CSH are related to, neighbors of, or friends with those in town who lost their jobs, and they are taking it out on the patients. The effort to confiscate their personal property (esp. denying them contact with outside groups and political organizations via phone, or internet) is pure retaliation. Once the US Supreme Court ruled at the end of last year that states could not prevent sex offenders from Internet social media, the DSH went into panic mode determined that these civil residents would NEVER have such a right given them. What is more, the Mayor and entire city council have filed a lawsuit in Fresno Superior Court to disenfranchise these patients. There is a underground effort to make these men suffer for what they have done. This needs to be investigated immediately while the lockdown is in place so that you can see for yourself the abusive conditions that not even prisoners are forced to endure.

First of all, if anyone is in contact with Janice, could you please have her contact me at steve.cerniglia@yahoo.com or call me after this hostage situation is over at 559-934-1228 regarding the our voting situation. It’s rather important. Thanks. Now, I call this a hostage situation because that is exactly what this is. We are no longer being civilly detained for Treatment. We are now being held hostage by State sponsored terrorists. We are being held in our cages (units), being fed what and when these terrorists decide. We are being denied complete access to all communication to the outside world; denied access to medical services that have been scheduled in the recent past; having our property, in fact, our way of life in here taken away from us, leaving many depressed and in despair; denied emotional, physical and psychological access and support with our loved ones; denied access our legal representatives and courts; denied access to the media, outside agencies and law enforcement entities who may be able to rescue us from these terrorists; and our so-called Patient’s Right’s Advocates are no where to be found. In fact, these terrorist have even removed the PRA phone from the units which would enable us to contact our PRA if they weren’t missing in action. So, my plea to anyone reading this who is in the community who can contact the civil rights division of the FBI, or any other agency they think might be able to at least gain legal access to this terrorist camp and come speak to the hostages, and not rely on the falsehoods and terrorist propaganda that these terrorists are putting forth to the media, and come see for themselves. Our fine men and women of this great nation are in foreign lands fighting terrorists who can and want to hurt this great nation, but no one seems to give a shit about the terrorists right here in our own back yard. WHAT A COUNTRY!!!

Phones are back up– limitedly. Only a few calls per day, and limited to 15min unless you’re an attorney. And call-outs are limited to 8-5 only, as well.

“They’re taking away the phones again, I gotta go, bye.”

That explains why I haven’t been able to get through at all today. And they *claimed* normal phones would be back up by Wednesday, when I asked. Not that I’m surprised they lied about that, mind you.

I wish I had enough of a legal background to actually DO something about this mess, I hope the people that do are going to really hammer at them.